


A World on Fire

by thatcomicfan



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Reality, Dubious Morality, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hydra (Marvel), Hydra Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-08-20 04:28:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16548902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatcomicfan/pseuds/thatcomicfan
Summary: When the newest Avengers recruit gets transported to a world where Hydra has taken over SHIELD with Steve Rogers at the helm, she must figure out a way to save it and return home.Inspired by the comic Secret EmpireTags might change in the future.





	1. Just Another Day

It was a beautiful morning that Emma woke up to. Autumn was here, and New York heat had receded to give way to a pleasant cold breeze. It was her favourite season. When she walked inside The Avengers Compound, her eyes fell on Steve sipping his coffee, looking fresh as ever. He was an early riser, her captain. He gave her a small smile accompanied with a wink that caused her face to heat up a little. Whoever said Steve Rogers was a shy person mustn’t have known him very well. He wasn’t Tony Stark by any means, something she was very thankful about but he had his own collection of flirty pick-up lines. And some of them he would use on her, only for light humour but they rendered her speechless all the same. She looked down at her baggy night clothes and realized what a contrasting picture they must paint. But she knew Steve didn’t care. So she joined him with a cup of her own. Yes, it was a perfect day.

And the day went on uneventfully too. The Avengers saw quite an amount of action so days like these were cherished by every member of the team, as few and far-apart they were. There were a few mind-numbingly boring meetings they all had to endure, but that was much easier to tackle than murderous robots and mischievous Gods. Yet, Emma could see the slight restlessness among her friends. Only Bruce Banner seemed to be content at the prospect of a vacation from their avenging duties. But she guessed that he usually preferred not to unleash the other guy, so this was a period of complete and utter bliss for him. And it wasn’t that the rest of them really enjoyed fighting either. But this was a team comprising a Super Soldier, a couple of spies, an assassin and a billionaire playboy who had earned a good part of his fortune because of conflicts between nations. Thor wasn’t always around, but he did have a reputation for courting wars before he had, as he put it, learned his lesson and become worthy of Mjolnir, the strange and enchanted hammer he carried. But they knew that these days were rare, so they all enjoyed to be simply in each other’s company. It felt good to be just friends sometimes, or even an unusual and dysfunctional family.

It was this thought, that Emma had gone to sleep with, that night. Perfectly happy, hoping to wake up well-rested, and not really anticipating any world endangering events to occur in the foreseeable future, especially not the very next day.

But she had woken up to suffocation and confinement. The smell of spirit had reached her nose before she had even opened her eyes. And cold had been biting at the skin of her back which should have been covered with her tank top, but for some indecipherable reason, it wasn’t. The realization caused her to jump forward only for her head to collide into hard, cold metal. She grunted, rubbing her forehead which felt tender beneath her fingers. It felt strange, wrong and Emma tried to remember if she’d had hard liquor last night which had made her forget how she had ended up wherever she was. She punched against the metal above her with the thin sheet that barely covered her clutched in her free hand.

Something pulled her back then and she covered her eyes with her hand to protect it from the onslaught of sudden brightness. A gasp from above made her remove it and there stood a woman, dressed as a nurse, with a horrified expression on her face. The fearful nurse backed away from an equally terrified Emma as she sat up. Her muscles felt sore as if they hadn’t been used in a while. She tried to use her voice to speak, but her throat felt scratchy and raw, and she ended up coughing violently into her own palm. Emma slid out and looked around as the woman who had freed her crouched down in a corner, weeping and scared. A small part of her, the avenger part, wanted to assure her that she was in no immediate danger, at least not from her. But her coughing fit made her head spin as she supported her body against a wall. Her eyes frantically scanned the room she was in, and it clicked to her then. She had woken up in a morgue.

Well, that was not right.

Firstly, she remembered very well that she had been in The Avengers Tower last night. She had gone to sleep on her bed which always felt too soft for comfort. Jarvis, like the nice butler/AI he was, had quietly dimmed the lights when she had dozed off with a book sprawled open on her chest. Secondly, the morgue was for dead people. And she was not dead, she was very well aware of her breathing. If anything, she had been breathing rather harshly. It was a panic attack, her mind registered faintly. So she focused. A panic attack was something she could handle. One step at a time. She tried to even her breathing, inhaling and exhaling deeply, counting the seconds in her head. When her heartbeat returned to a normal rate, Emma stood up slowly, not yet trusting her legs to be able to support her weight. They wobbled but she didn’t fall. Now that she was more aware, she could feel her nakedness behind the thin sheet that was barely covering it. The nurse had miraculously stayed there. Although, Emma could tell that she was in shock which had rooted her on the spot.

She walked towards her slowly, like a prey stalking a predator. The movement seemed to bring the timid woman out of her frozen state and she whimpered. “I won’t hurt you,” Emma whispered, thankful that her ability to speak was back even if her voice sounded strange to her like she had swallowed sand. And then she punched her. Emma hissed as she brought her fisted hand to her chest and pressed it with the other. Her knuckles were tinged a light red, but the nurse was knocked out so it got the job done.

Dressed in the other woman’s clothes, Emma could finally focus on other things. She studied the drawer she had woken up in. The name on the tag was an unrecognizable one. That only served to confuse her more than she already was. “Alyssa Jones,” she murmured under her breath. It sounded foreign and odd. She was Emma Johnson, that was the name given to her by her parents.

Emma closed the drawer with a loud clang, but not before hiding the unconscious woman inside. She only hoped someone would find her soon enough just like she had found her. She made her way outside, trying to find help. Her mind was already thinking, plotting a way to get out of this place. The morgue had to be on one of the lower floors of this building which, she assumed, was a hospital. So she began searching for a staircase or an elevator. She found the latter first and thankfully no one had been around when she slipped inside. She pressed a button but it didn’t move. She could feel the panic building inside her again, but she swallowed and started to look around. Maybe there was a keypad, something to unlock the elevator. She fished out the nurse’s ID from her pocket that she’d had good mind to steal and flipped it over to see a magnetic strip on it. She swiped it against a slot that was barely visible, and the elevator dinged and began to move. Emma sighed in relief and rested herself against the cold metallic wall behind her.

Unfortunately, her relief was short-lived. The door slid open to reveal the bustle of a very busy hospital. For a moment, Emma considered returning to the morgue but she picked herself up and moved outside. The doctors and nurses around her ignored her presence, assuming her to be just another member of the staff. She was thankful about that. Trying to suppress the tremble in her hand, she tried to remember that she was trained as a spy. And as a spy, she could deal with this situation. All she needed to do first was find some way to access the internet. But there was none to be found anywhere. She slipped inside various offices, and the computers there were nothing but blank boxes. The corridor was lined with television sets at almost every corner. They didn’t display any information, and Emma wondered what their purpose was. As she looked around a swipe the ID of someone who was authorized to use the computers, a loud music caught everyone’s attention and every single person stopped, looking towards the televisions. Emma followed suit, not wanting to stick out like a sore thumb.

“Three years ago, our great nation was nothing but chaos and imbalance,” an old man spoke on the screen. Emma studied his face, he looked familiar but she couldn’t place it. “SHIELD and its lies had plunged us into darkness.”

Her brows furrowed, it had been barely a year since SHIELD fell. It just didn’t add up. The old man continued, “But then, a hero returned. A hero who had defended our country many years ago, and with him returned Hydra.” Emma could hardly believe the man whose face was plastered on the screen. “With Captain Hydra, our own Steve Rogers, we have brought peace and prosperity to this beautiful country of ours.”

She stood there stunned and silent as a footage of Steve punching his way through his enemies appeared. His shield was missing, and instead, she could clearly make out a gun holstered to his belt. And then he turned to the camera and spoke in a clear voice, “Hail Hydra.”

 

 


	2. Captain Hydra

Confusion was a mild word to explain what Emma was really feeling as she stood in that hallway. It was him. It was Steve, there was no doubt about it. His strong angular jaw, his slightly crooked nose, it was all there. And his eyes were so blue, just like she knew them to be. But it wasn’t really him anymore. The warmth in his blue pools was replaced by cold hard anger. She could feel it even then. Even though she knew the man, he looked like a stranger, like an enemy.

The people around her were mesmerized by Steve’s display of power. But all she could feel was bile rising up in her throat. This wasn’t the Captain America she knew. This was someone else. And this world was leagues away from the world she lived in. What had changed overnight? Maybe it was just a nightmare. Emma pinched her forearm once. Twice. Thrice. She blinked rapidly. Nothing changed. She was still standing in the same place. Looking at the same people. Even if Steve was a Hydra Agent now and it seemed like he was also the face of the whole organization, she still didn’t know where the rest of her team was. They were her only chance to truly understand what was going on.

Emma walked as fast as she could without breaking into a run. She didn’t want to attract anyone’s attention. She had to find Tony first. He’d be the easiest to find, given his celebrity status. Everyone else could wait for now. She found the gate of the building and looked around discreetly, slowing her pace so she didn’t seem suspicious. She slipped her hands inside the pocket of her scrubs to hide the tremble in them as she walked. It was a strange nervous tic she had developed. She didn’t have it until yesterday.

A cold breeze greeted her as soon as she stepped out. And only a moment passed before she was surrounded by men holding rifles. They weren’t pointed at her but she could see that they wouldn’t hesitate to use it. Emma raised her hands immediately, cursing under her breath. Their faces were covered, so she couldn’t recognize them. But she doubted there was anything familiar for her in this strange world. A man approached her and she took a step back instinctively. “Miss Johnson, we are here to escort you back to Captain Rogers as per his orders.”

All Emma could notice was that he had called her using her actual last name. Not Jones, but Johnson. The thought relieved and confused her at the same time. “Who are you?” she asked, her hands still raised in surrender. The man seemed to be losing his patience as he repeated, “Ma’am I am tasked with getting you back to Captain Rogers. Please cooperate.”

No, she was not going to meet Steve Rogers. This was not the Steve she wanted to see. She wanted to see the Steve who was the epitome of all that was good, the Steve who was the leader of The Avengers, the Steve who had the warmest blue eyes which made her nervous and safe at the same time. Emma looked around only to see people staring at the ordeal but not making a single move to come to her aid. That’s when she noticed Hydra’s emblem patched onto the man’s uniform. The cars behind him had a red skull with tentacles painted on it. “You are Hydra,” she spat.

“Look around, Miss Johnson. Everything, everyone here is Hydra.”

Even though she could not see him, Emma could hear the leer in his voice. She was truly fucked.

 

* * *

 

 

It must have been a long time since he had started his workout. Steve wiped the sweat that dripped from his forehead with the back of his hand. He had destroyed at least seven sandbags today, he had lost count of it. He had been restless since morning and wanted to punch something till his knuckles hurt and the anger that coiled in his belly vanished. The serum would heal him fast enough and there wouldn’t be any lasting effect on his skin, so he put all of his strength behind every punch. It was rough, just like life had treated him the past few days.

The door to the gym opened suddenly but he didn’t stop. “Sir,” a meek voice called to him. “Rumlow is here to see you.” Steve turned to look at his assistant who was actually just a useless pushover he called Bob. He didn’t even know his real name. The Captain was almost sure, “Bob” had only joined Hydra for a good dental plan. Hydra did have a really good dental plan.

He looked at his assistant over his shoulder before landing a powerful punch on the bag which sent it flying over to the other side. Bob flinched and Steve didn’t try to hide his smirk. There was no doubt that he was a wimp, but his temperament assured Steve that he would never ever think of betraying him. And since the last few days, he hadn’t had any time for men who thought they could outplay Captain Hydra. A lot had changed since Emma had left him. Ruthless work out was the only way to let out his anger at himself, at his failure to keep her safe.

“Let him in,” he spoke without looking at the quivering man.

He heard her familiar footfalls before he saw her. She looked almost the same. His heart did a lurch in his chest as he swept his hair out of his eyes to tidy up his appearance and gave her a small smile. Her face was a little pale, and her lips seemed to be curved in a frown. But that was okay. He would just kiss it away. What really got to him were her eyes. They were still a captivating dark green he always found difficult to look away from. His Emma was here. He walked towards her slow and hesitant like she would run away from him or disappear into thin air if he took one wrong step.

It was when his eyes landed on her forearm that he growled in a low voice, “Hands off, Rumlow.”

The man to his credit looked unfazed but he knew that voice. It was the last and the only warning he would get. So, dutifully, he loosened his grip on Emma’s arm and let his hand fall to his side. “Sorry boss.”

It didn’t take Rumlow too long to make himself scarce after that. He had always been good at knowing when he was needed and when staying only meant he would be sporting a broken nose for the next few days. Steve appreciated it a lot. He turned to Emma who had been staring at him head-on. Not once had her gaze faltered. “It’s really you?”

Steve smiled at her, “Was it someone else you were expecting?” She looked away from him as her eyes began scanning her surroundings as if she has seen the place for the first time. He patiently let her observe everything. Her eyes followed every corner, then at the door they had entered through, and then back at him.

“Emma, what is it?” he asked, taking a step closer to her. She took one away from him. “What did you do?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” her eyes flashed with anger, “you are not the Steve I know.”

Her words were barely a whisper, nothing like the pointed look she regarded him with but they still cut him. “I am the only Steve you know, Emma. You’re not making any sense.” She shook her head vigorously as her eyes welled up with tears. “You are not him. You work for Hydra. Hell, you  _ _are__  Hydra.” Her feet had started to retreat from him, Steve noticed how she was trying to get away, but he was much faster than her thanks to the serum. In just one long stride, he was close enough to grab her by her upper arms.

Steve raised his hand and she flinched. The little action hurt him more than any bullet could. He cupped her cheek slowly in his palm, undeterred as he whispered to her, “Did you really think I would strike you?”

Wide eyes stared back at him as he rested his forehead against hers. His arms encircled her until he had her wrapped up in them. He could feel her body tremble under the scrubs she was wearing. “I missed you so much,” he spoke softly. “I don’t know what is wrong with you. That wizard messed up. He did something to you, but don’t worry sweetheart, I will hunt him down and make him fix you.”

 

* * *

 

 

Emma cried and cried and cried till her eyes dried up. She had been locked inside a room on the orders of Steve, no, Captain Hydra. He wasn't that man. She couldn't let this cheap imitation corrupt her memories of the man she knew and respected so much.   
  
He had looked miserable as he had watched his men escort her to her cage. It didn't make sense. He had called her sweetheart. He said a wizard had messed her up but she couldn't understand. She didn't know what he meant. And the way he had looked at her had felt like a knife twisting in her heart. She would've given anything for Steve to look at her that way. But she knew it was not him looking at her. It was Captain Hydra.   
  
She looked at the queen sized bed in the centre of the room warily. The walls were grey and there was barely any light inside. It was cold. So cold. The room didn't look like a prison but she could bet on her life that it was. She was in a prison which she couldn't escape. Not ever.   
  
The door knob twisted behind her and she whirled around in panic. Steve entered the room, not looking much better than she felt. His blue eyes appeared dull and he looked sleep deprived. Even though this man was a stranger, she could read him like an open book.

“I am sorry, babe,” he spoke in a soft apologetic voice. “I know this is all really confusing for you. But I can't let you in our home yet. Not until I know exactly what has happened to you.”  
  
“Our home?” Her eyebrows furrowed as she echoed his words.   
  
“Yes,” he smiled, “Our home. Where we lived together happily.”  
  
Emma shook her head in disbelief. Her arms wrapped around her body in attempts to warm her up. “You're lying. This is all a practical joke or I am still dreaming.”  
  
His hand reached out to touch her again but Steve stopped when she shied away from it. “Don’t,” her voice was sharp. “Don't you dare touch me.” She stared at his stiff form betraying the anger he was letting simmer beneath his skin. He didn't let it out, didn’t yell at her, but instead kept his fists clenched at his sides. 

“I won't touch you, not till you ask me to. I promise that.”  
  
The words left an echo in the quaint room as he left her alone and he locked the door behind him. His disregard for her words left her speechless and seething. Her feet carried her across the room and she banged her fist against the door. “That will never happen. Do you understand? Never.”  
  
Her scream was met with no reply from the other side and Emma let out a sob as she let herself slide onto the floor.

 

 


	3. A Man of His Word

Steve paced the hallway outside his office. The restlessness and frustration had pooled in his gut, rendering him unable to stay still. Something wrong had happened. Stephen Strange had not honored their deal and had so easily led him to believe that he would truly bring Emma back. It was his own mistake, trusting a charlatan. He was a military man, after all. But there was nothing else he could have done to get her back. And he wouldn’t have stopped without her safe beside him, where she belonged. He didn’t want to imagine living without her and had made a bad deal.

It was wrong to keep her in confinement. He knew that. It hurt her and seeing her with all that hatred filled in her dark eyes hurt him even more. She had never looked at him that way, always giving him warm smiles and her arms were always open for him. But now she was different. Now she was cold, filled with spite for him. His Emma, the woman he loved, hated him and feared him at the same time. He had built an empire for her, and she had loved him for it. But he would burn this empire down if that’s what it took to bring her back to him just as she was.

He was snapped out of his daze when his phone chimed from inside his office. His strong hearing made it easy for him to hear the slight sound. He snatched it up, his movements impatient. The message infuriated him enough for him to send his phone flying towards the wall. It fell on the floor and a feral growl erupted from his throat.

Stephen Strange was nowhere to be found, but the worst part was that the whole New York Sanctum had gone missing. He should have never made the deal with the shrewd man. It wasn’t that Steve hadn’t been dubious about the man’s demands in return for bringing Emma back to him from the dead, but he had only considered it to be fair that the sorcerer would want access to the sanctum and his mystical belongings. The Captain had been so desperate that he had failed to notice the red flags that now appeared as large as The Triskelion.

The search party he had dispatched to bring Strange to him had returned. He had, yet again, trusted Rumlow to lead it. But this time he had come back empty-handed. “The whole sanctum is gone,” he spoke. Steve wondered if the slight waver he had heard in his voice was fear.

“How can he make a whole damn building disappear?” Steve questioned, fury evident in his voice.

“We don’t know. It was just gone. No one knows what happened to it.”

Magic, Steve realized, was going to be Hydra’s downfall. Of all the things, magic. No one could say what kind of tricks Strange had hidden in the sanctum. He nodded, motioning Rumlow to leave and the man complied quietly.

Left with his own thoughts, Steve sat down in the plush chair of his office. He had never wanted this, the luxury of being himself, being Captain Hydra. He wanted to build a world in his own vision, with Emma beside him. And once that was done, he wanted to take her to a secluded place where no one could touch them or harm them, away from all the politics. But there was no one who was qualified to take his place. He couldn’t trust any of these gullible men to make sure the world wouldn’t tear itself in half as soon as he stepped down. And now he had lost his chance. He had lost her, absolutely failed to protect her. The most powerful man in America could not keep his loved ones safe.

His thoughts were interrupted when Bob’s voice rang through his earpiece. “Captain, Director Pierce is here to see you.” Steve groaned first, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. There were a few things he didn’t enjoy about being Captain Hydra. One of them was the propaganda videos and the other, more annoying was talking schemes with Alexander Pierce. The man was relentless, always thinking of new ways of enforcing Hydra into a normal civilian’s life. He didn’t understand the point of it. Hydra was in power now, and no one could ever rise to challenge them. But Pierce couldn’t be convinced to stop.

Steve breathed deeply to curb his anger. The man had still played a pivotal role in establishing Hydra so there was no point in insulting him.

“Shall I let him in, Sir?” Bob asked again, a nervous tremble in his voice. But Steve had no time to prey on it today. “Fine.”

The door opened just a moment later and he looked up to see Alexander Pierce walk in with a smile on his face. He knew what that smile meant. Pierce was here to whine about something, and Steve wasn’t sure he was in the mood for any of that. “Director,” he nodded, forcing a tight smile in return.

“Captain,” the man greeted as his soft pudgy hands pulled a chair for himself. “I heard you found her.”

“I did.”

“But she was dead.”

Steve felt his body stiffen, his jaw clenching and unclenching in a moment of pure rage. Pierce wasn’t supposed to know about this small piece of information. It was an off-book operation. “Clearly, she wasn’t. She was only missing and I found her.”

“Rumlow said he found her outside a hospital?” While the old man made it sound like it was a question, Steve was sure he already knew the truth.

He leaned back in his chair, fixing him with a gaze as cold as the ice he had plunged himself in seventy years ago, “So Rumlow has been talking to you?” Alexander smiled at him again, undaunted even though Steve could have killed him in a single moment with his bare hands. “We are old friends Captain. We talk sometimes.”

“About missions?” Steve asked, anger seeping into his voice. His knuckles were white from clenching his hand too hard.

“But this wasn’t an official mission was it?”

“I thought we were supposed to stay out of each other’s business.”

Alexander leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, with a gaze scrutinizing enough that it made Steve uncomfortable. “Not when we start losing important assets.”

Steve didn’t say a word in response. It was better to not fill in any blanks in whatever information Pierce already had. He wished Emma was here. She knew how to handle him. With her threats dipped in honey, she was a double-edged sword.

“The Sorcerer has gone missing because of a deal you made.”

“There are others,” he replied nonchalantly.

The laugh that escaped Pierce’s mouth was condescending. It made Steve’s blood boil. But he wasn’t the one to give into anger so easily. “You think I care about others? You gave Stephen Strange access to his Sanctum, his magic. And now he has run off to someplace we can’t find him. He might be in Hong Kong or London, but we can’t very well go and look there, can we? We have no jurisdiction. Have you ever stopped to wonder that the sorcerers might retaliate? All of this for that little slut of yours.”

Steve took in every insult, every reprimand patiently as he relaxed in his chair. His expressions remained tranquil as he stood up and walked around the table. He could see fear etch itself on Alexander’s face as he clutched the collar of his shirt and picked him up till he could look in his eyes. “It would do you good to remember that Emma was the only reason I joined your damned crusade. And without me, Hydra would be nowhere.”

His grip loosened and he let the trembling man fall back into his seat.

* * *

Emma shuddered helplessly even under the warm blankets she had found neatly folded at the foot of the bed. After Steve had left her alone, she had sat on the floor for a long time. There had been no more tears and instead, the numbness had spread in her chest. She didn’t feel for a long time, her thoughts incoherent to even herself. Her glazed state only broke when she realized that her clothes felt icky. She reminded herself then that she had stolen them from a nurse, a helpless, innocent nurse who had done nothing wrong. Guilt pooled in her belly, she had been so terrified that she had hurt someone.

Fresh tears welled up in her eyes, but she wiped them away roughly. There was a time to cry and then there was a time to plan. This was definitely the latter. Her gaze settled on a stack of clothes on a small table placed in the corner of the small room. She examined them almost reluctantly, not really sure if this was some kind of a trap. But they were just black colored sweats, nothing else. She realized that they must have been left here for her. Shimmying out of her borrowed clothes, she quickly put the sweats on. They were comfortable, the fabric soft and warm.

Emma scanned the small room, which was devastatingly empty. Every corner she turned to was bare. Save for the bed, the table and a small bathroom, there was nothing for her to use. There was no window inside either, just a small vent located at a height that she couldn’t reach even with the support of the table. She felt hope dwindling in her chest, but her rational mind was quick to suppress that thought. If she was a prisoner here and since she was important to Captain Hydra, she thought bitterly, someone had to visit her soon to give her food since there was nothing edible here.

With nothing to do but wait, Emma soon felt the exhaustion in her bones catching up to her. And for a while, she was blissfully asleep.

* * *

Steve didn’t know what he was doing there, in her room. But his frustration had led him here. Everything seemed to fail and fall apart. With Strange missing, Pierce challenging his authority at every step and Rumlow chattering to his old friend like a little girl, he had truly felt lost. Before her death, Emma had been the only reprieve for him. He remembered the way she would wait for him to return, on the bed, in that flimsy and small nightie of hers. He loved it. He loved sliding it down her body slowly, pressing kisses to her creamy skin. He loved the way she would smell like honey every night. He loved the familiarity of her embrace. She would hold him tight, till all his worries would fade away. Coming home to her was the best part of his day.

It was probably that hope that had brought him here. Hope that maybe she loved him now. That whatever had gone wrong in her mind had gotten fixed on its own. And for a moment, she had opened her eyes and smiled at him as he stood a few steps away from the bed. She whispered his name softly before her eyes hardened and her body went rigid, all in a span of a few seconds. She sat up abruptly.

“How are you feeling now?” he asked her, ignoring the way she brought her knees to her chest as if shrinking away from him was the only way to escape him. She didn’t speak, only rewarded him with a glare.

Weariness overcame him and he let out an exasperated sigh. “Who are you, really?”

He watched as her mouth opened to answer him but then snapped shut as confusion marred her beautiful face. She narrowed her eyes, almost suspiciously before she broke the silence, “You don’t know me?”

“I know Emma, my Emma. I love her. But you’re not her, are you? You are someone else.”

If she found his tone accusatory and harsh, she didn’t look fazed by it. He saw her shoulders sag, almost in defeat. “I have no idea what is going on, to be honest. Last night I was with my friends, The Avengers. Have you heard of them?”

Steve shook his head silently, so she continued.

“They are a group of people who keep the world safe. I am or was one of them. And you were too.”

She paused, gauging his reaction as Steve’s eyebrow shot up in disbelief, “I don’t think I follow you.”

Emma snorted, almost indignantly. “Of course you don’t, you are entirely different from the Captain America I knew.”

“Captain America?” Now it was his turn to laugh. “I actually stuck with that tacky name they gave me when I was a dancing monkey for them?"

“It was your choice,” she replied with a graceful shrug of her slim shoulders, “And you hated Hydra more than anyone else. You were the one who destroyed them when they took over SHIELD.”

Steve felt like his breath had been knocked out of his lungs. He couldn’t imagine a world where he would make that decision. Not with all the lies that SHIELD had been spewing since the day they came into power.

“When I woke up today, I found myself in a morgue admitted there under an alias Alyssa Jones. Do you know this name?”

He gave a small and hesitant nod, “Jones was your mother’s maiden name. And Alyssa was the name you gave to me when we had first met three years ago.”

Steve watched as Emma processed the information, her expressions morphed into that of disbelief as creases appeared on her forehead. “I never knew my parents. How could I possibly know my mother’s maiden name?”

“They died in a terrorist attack, Emma. You told me. It was orchestrated by SHIELD. They were collateral damage.”

Even though he had spoken gently, there was nothing Steve could do to soften that blow. He saw her eyes glaze over as if she wasn’t looking at him anymore. When she raised them to look at him again, they were glassy, filled with unshed tears.

“What else can you tell me?” she asked in a voice so strong, he had to look at her just to confirm that she was still the same person he was talking to. “You said something about a wizard messing something up, what did that mean?”

Steve didn’t want to feel the pride he felt for her and her knack for detail. It was just like his Emma to be so straightforward and sharp. But this line of questioning was what had him worried. “I met you after I woke up.”

“You mean after you were defrosted?”

“If that’s the term you want to go with. You were hurt, looking for vengeance against the people who made you an orphan. And you helped me see the truth about SHIELD and Hydra. You built it with me.”

The laugh that escaped her lips was short and humorless. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

“It’s the truth. And when you died-”

“I died?”

“When she died,” Steve amended, “I asked Stephen Strange to bring her back. But he betrayed me. And I got you instead of my Emma.”

Emma shook her head as she leaned back on the bed, “You mean to say I helped you to get Hydra into power? Because I would never do that.”

“You wouldn’t because you didn’t know the truth,” he said with a small nod, “but she would. And she did. But I lost her and now she is gone and you are here.”

He saw the way the bitter smile slowly disappeared from her face. “Well, then I am glad that this is as inconvenient for you as it is for me. Because you screwed up when you trusted a wizard. Guess what, it failed and you failed.”

The brutal words that escaped her mouth broke his resolve. Steve wanted to punish her, but he couldn’t hurt her. Even if he knew that she was not the same person, she had the same dark eyes, the same wild dark hair. The familiarity of it felt like shackles around his wrists. But he knew that it didn’t have to be like that. His shackles could be the solution to his problem. He couldn’t bring his Emma back but the woman in front of him was still Emma, maybe from a different world but she had all the quirks and grace of the woman he had loved.

“I didn’t fail. I did bring you back. And if I could win you over before, then I promise you I will do it again. And you must already know this, I am a man of my word.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really know if anyone is reading this, but for those of you are, I am so sorry I took so long to update. I am an idiot and I have no excuse. I hope you can forgive me. I did write a long chapter (well, longer than my usual ones). So, I hope you enjoy this.


	4. The Woman and The Wizard

He was free, he was finally free. His friends were gone, but his magic, something he had taken months to hone, was back. Stephen Strange was finally not a prisoner of Hydra anymore. The muddy water splashed as his shoes landed in the puddles but he had no care. To feel the cold air on his skin, to be able to see the stars in the sky just once again was everything he had wanted. He had started to go crazy inside that cell Hydra had stuck him in. And though they gave him a soft bed and food to eat, they weren’t fooling anyone. It was a prison. He would have died there. He would have preferred that too.

But then for the first time in his entire life, he had been approached by the man behind it all. Steve Rogers. He was desperate. The doctor in Stephen had easily reached the conclusion that the Captain was tired and stressed. His face was dull, his eyes rimmed with dark circles. He had lost someone, he said. And he wanted her back. Stephen had scoffed. Of course, even from the position of weakness, Steve Rogers never asked for help, he demanded it. He wanted to tell him to leave, to forget her but he couldn’t. This was his chance. His first and probably only chance. He had to lie. He had to tell him that he could bring the dead back. Steve hadn’t batted an eye at the ridiculous statement. No one could bring the dead woman back to life. But the Captain didn’t know that.

When he had first seen her, he had hated her so much. She was so naïve, looking at Steve Rogers with such love and devotion that it made bile rise in his throat. But the more time he spent there, the more he realized that this reality was different. This Steve Rogers was different. And so was this woman. They behaved more like colleagues or even friends but not lovers. It was a reality where Steve Rogers was a better man who had helped shape a better world.

But he was weak in the face of his own vengeance. He wanted to smite Captain Hydra, make him feel pain just like he had when those Hydra goons had murdered his friends in front of him all those years ago, so he stole her from this world and brought her to his.

She didn’t wake up for the first few hours and Strange realized that he might have failed. He had another chance to not subject this clueless woman to horrors of his reality. But fear made him do terrible things and so he tried again, but this time with a promise that he would get his Sanctum, his home in return. He had seen the irritation in the eyes of the Captain. He didn’t like to compromise, but this time he had no other alternative.

“The spell would take at least twelve hours to work,” Stephen told him.

Steve nodded wordlessly. He was a man who had lost everything. It wasn’t lost on the doctor that he had truly loved this woman as he watched him stroke her hair.

He left before she could open her eyes.

When his eyes landed on the sanctum, his heart lurched in his chest. It looked familiar, but there was something different about it. Stephen realized that it was the absence of his mentor who was murdered mercilessly by the army of inhumans controlled by Hive, it was the absence of the initiates who hadn’t yet learned enough to be able to defend themselves. Stephen didn’t waste much time mourning for them yet, he could do that later if he was able to stay alive for that long. It was only a matter of few hours before Captain Hydra would come after him with his entire force. He knew what spell he wanted to perform. With the full power of the sanctum, it would only take him minutes to make the building disappear. No one could ever invade his home again.

The door of the sanctum opened as he sat down with the book to prepare for the spell. Boots hit the floor in a rhythm making his whole body shudder. “Hands on your head and turn around now,” a voice ordered him as he felt the pressure of a gun against the back of his head.

Stephen woke up with a sharp gasp, the sheets sticking to his clammy skin as he clutched his ears to get rid of the distant and fading ringing in them. There had been no Hydra goons who had found him in the sanctum. There was no gun pointed at him. The realization calmed him as his trembling fingers fumbled with the jug on the nightstand to pour a glass of water. The shaking in his hands never really went away but they weren’t entirely useless anymore. He gulped the water at once and relaxed against the headrest.

He didn’t know what urged him to do it but he kicked away the thin white sheet only a few moments later and walked across the quaint motel room to retrieve the sling ring he had taken from the sanctum. He slipped it on tentatively as if still not sure what he really wanted to do with it. But these past few days, he wasn't really sure of anything he had been doing.

With his one arm held out in front him, he began moving the one with the ring in a circular motion. It only took him a little concentration, but he was there in a matter of a few seconds.

The realization that she had been in a cell, one very similar to his own, did nothing to alleviate his guilt. It only enforced the feeling as if a knife was twisting in his chest. She was shaking on the bed under the covers. He didn’t see a plate of half-eaten food, even though there were supposed to be two of them if he remembered the schedules correctly.

“Miss Johnson,” he whispered and she stilled.

The woman that turned around to look at him had tear-stained cheeks, and untrusting and fearful eyes. And he had been an absolute idiot to come here, without a shirt no less.

“What the hell?”

* * *

Normally Emma would have been more articulate with her words. But the situation or the half-naked man in front of her made her brain short-circuit for a moment. Was there a door here she hadn’t noticed? That couldn’t be true. She had a spy’s eyes. She could never miss the means of escape from any situation which involved her imprisonment.

But there he was, a man in a pair of checked cotton pants, standing beside her bed and looking at her with what she could describe as pity in his eyes.

“Who the hell are you? How did you get here?”

“My name is Doctor Stephen Strange. And I am the reason for your current predicament.”

“What does that mean?” she asked as her body involuntarily jerked away from the bed. Her feet almost got tangled in the blanket but she saved herself from falling by bracing herself against the edge of the table.

The man, Stephen Strange, a name that sounded familiar but she couldn’t place it, exhaled as he raised his hands up, “As you must have noticed, there is something wrong with this reality.”

“Yeah, everything is wrong with this reality. How do you-”

And then the pieces began to fall in place. She knew who he was, Steve had told her. The wizard who screwed up and brought her here. She hadn’t known what to think of it at the time, it sounded so ridiculous. But then she remembered Thor, and how he had told her once that everything they considered magic on Earth was science on Asgard.

“Are you from Asgard? Why would you do that?”

Stephen blinked, “Ass-what? Is that a new curse word? Listen, I am the one who carried your soul from your reality to mine.”

Emma scoffed, “Yeah, and how did you do that?”

“With magic. I am a sorcerer.”

“Why?”

The simple question put him at unease, Emma could see it. “That is going to take a little while to explain.”

* * *

He tried to explain it to the best of his ability. It wasn’t exactly a difficult concept but the look on her face made it harder for him to say the words, to confess. At some point, she had taken a seat at the edge of the bed with the blankets wrapped around her and he had perched on the farthest end. It didn’t elude him that she had allowed him to.

Emma listened to him intently, nodding when she understood and wanting him to carry on, but raising her eyebrows in disbelief when he started to tell her about his mystical abilities and Kamar Taj.

“You hated him so much that you were willing to punish someone else for what he did?”

Stephen sighed, looking down at his lap, “I was desperate to escape. I am not proud of it but I saw a chance and I took it.”

“You can’t tell me that there isn’t any other reality out there, one like yours where Steve is well, an asshole, and I am his whore.”

Ignoring her crassness he raised his head to look at her questioningly, “What’s your point?”

Emma let out an impatient breath as she started to pace around the room out of restlessness, “You couldn’t have plucked out the Emma that would’ve suited this world? Because what you did isn’t punishing Steve. He thinks he will win me over with his infinite charms. I am the only one being tormented.”

“It’s not only that. You weren’t his whore,” he replied, “You were the mastermind behind Hydra. You were his half. His better, more manipulative half. So I stunted him.”

She crossed her arms defensively, “I have heard this story but I could never do it. I can hate SHIELD, sure. It wasn’t exactly the testament of truth, but I could never support Hydra.”

“But you did,” Stephen stood up as his voice got louder and he pointed a finger towards her, “You did it. And you hurt people. My people.”

“No, I didn’t. She did that and she was dead. You could’ve just let her stay dead.”

“He would’ve killed me,” he bellowed and Emma took a step away from him. Stephen watched her eyes widen into pools of pure horror and heard the wince that escaped her mouth. He breathed deeply with his eyes closed. The tremble in his fingers escalated and he lowered his voice, “Not that I wouldn’t have preferred death over rotting in a cell, but I wanted to fight back. So I took the only opportunity I was ever going to get. And that’s why I came here. I want you to help me finish Steve Rogers and end Hydra.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I know I revealed like 2 chapters ago that Stephen Strange was the one who screwed up our Emma but this is the first time he is actually there in the story. Tell me what you think and thanks for reading.


	5. Deception

Steve had to ask Bruce twice to ensure that he really had heard what he thought he had heard. The two words had knocked the air out of his lungs. _Brain Dead_.

Emma was brain dead. That’s what Bruce’s professional opinion was. And while Steve wasn’t well-versed in medical jargon, the words sounded as bad as they could. That was how he had found her this afternoon, after asking FRIDAY what she was doing in her apartment. She had missed her morning routine. Missed the quiet coffee they would share every day. It had nagged him all morning and he had become impatient enough to try to find her and drag her out of her room. He didn’t try to analyze the reason behind that.

He hadn’t stopped there, though. While he trusted Bruce’s abilities as a doctor, he needed it confirmed for himself to a higher degree. So he had gone and looked for the young witch they had welcomed to the team recently and asked her to scan her brain. Wanda had taken one look at Emma’s seemingly lifeless body lying on the stretcher and turned to him with apologetic eyes. She hadn’t spoken a word and Steve hadn’t needed her to. He understood what her silence meant.

So, he stormed out of the infirmary, not really caring if it seemed harsh to the team members present there. He needed to be alone. He needed to think. He needed her to come back to him.

The familiar footfalls of Natasha behind him compelled him to increase the length of his strides. She’d have something incredibly clever to say, but he wasn’t at all interested to hear it. Clever words couldn’t save Emma today.

“Steve, stop,” she called after him, a hint of irritation in her voice. He knew she was the only one who would even try to approach him when he had made it crystal clear to the entire team that he was furious. They knew to stay away. Natasha clearly didn’t.

How she had managed to walk past him and stand right in his path and block him, he didn’t know. But soon enough, her calculating green eyes were looking at him with what he could tell was a reprimand. He couldn’t really find it in himself to care about it.

“I would be obliged Nat if you would spare me of your lectures today. I am really not in the mood.”

The smirk she gave him was slight but managed to be as condescending as ever. “Bruce just talked to Doctor Cho. She’s coming in to see what the deal with Emma is. I thought you should know that.”

“Tell me if there are any updates.”

Natasha frowned at his aloof reply and her brows creased as he tried to step beside her to continue on his trajectory. “We are her friends too, Steve. This is hurting us too. You need to be with the team right now.”

Steve stopped, closed his eyes for a moment, and then circled on his feet to face her, “I just don’t understand Nat. She was alright yesterday. She was healthy and happy.”

His voice broke and Natasha’s features softened.

“And now, all of a sudden she is-”

A soft hand on his forearm cut him off. Steve knew that it was extremely rare for the formidable Black Widow to show anything that resembled physical affection. But her rules changed for him. She had let herself be vulnerable around him enough times, and he had done the same. It all started with the little faith he had placed in her when she had asked him if he would trust her to save his life.

“Bruce is trying. You know that. We’ll find the best neurosurgeon in the world. We will do everything we can,” her voice was calm, soothing. Her features relaxed further as she let out a small breath. “I understand if you want to be alone right now, I will cover for you with the team. And I am aware that this might not be the best time to mention it, but you better prepare a romantic speech for when we get Emma back.”

Despite the dreary situation, Steve cracked a smile. She really did know him, and she knew all about his feelings for Emma. Not exactly the best time to mention it, she was right about that. But truly, how much time had he wasted, not telling Emma the truth. Steve should have known better. It was never a good idea to wait. He had said as much to Bruce, but it seemed that he had failed to heed his own advice.

But what else could he have done? Emma had stunned him into silence the first moment he had laid eyes on her. She had been a SHIELD agent, fighting several men from Hydra at the same time. She was on the same helicarrier as him and was truly holding her own against their enemies even though they outnumbered her. But that didn’t make her falter. It made her punch harder, kick harder. Steve had wasted a few precious seconds just staring at the ordeal before he had thrown his shield at those men.

When one of their friends fell, the others instantly began to converge on Steve. He and Emma, both had fought them off together, and their coordination had been natural. It was almost as if they were meant to fight side by side.

After ensuring that Sam had safely gotten her off the helicarrier, he didn’t get the time to find out who she was and where she had disappeared to. It wasn’t until Maria had joined the Stark industries along with another SHIELD agent that he found her again.

Steve hadn’t realized that he was staring at a door until after a few moments. He had instinctively come to stand in front of Emma’s apartment door, not really realizing it as he stepped inside the elevator and asked FRIDAY to bring him here. A shudder rocked his body. He knew that if he knocked, there would be no one to open the door for him.

He felt powerless, he could do nothing at all to bring her back. But he could have faith in people, in his team. They never let him down. He prayed silently, for Bruce or Doctor Cho to find a way to help her and inadvertently help him.

* * *

Emma stared at the spot where Stephen Strange had created a sparkling portal and disappeared through it, but not before telling her his plan and asking for her help. She hadn’t wasted more than second to tell him that she wanted in on it. That she would help him. But now that she knew what that entailed, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

_“You have to gain his trust. We need someone on the inside.”_

Logically, it made perfect sense. Steve wanted her to love him, she only had to give in to his desires. But she couldn’t seem too eager. Even if this wasn’t the Captain America from her reality, he was still born with the same quick thinking and ability for being perceptive at the most unfortunate of times. She had to be careful, had to find a way to make her change of heart seem genuine to Steve.

The plan had already begun forming in her head. A way to get close to him without him knowing her real intentions. She just didn’t know if she would be able to keep it up for too long. Or, what if her feelings became real? In any case, she had agreed to the plan, so she had to take the first step.

It might have been a couple of hours before she finally had another visitor. But she really couldn’t be sure. There was no way to tell the time. She could, maybe, also ask for a clock along with the other, definitely more important request.

This new visitor was a young man, burly and proud. He had a plate in his hand which he placed on the table with a kind of grace she wasn’t expecting from him. “Hey,” she called out to him but he ignored her as he began to make his way out of her cell. That wasn’t going to stop her though, “Tell your Captain Hydra that I want to see him.”

Her request paused him but he didn’t warrant it with a reply, he didn’t even look at her. And after a few moments had passed, he left. The lock clicked in its place and Emma felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.

It didn’t take Steve too long to come and see her after that. He maintained a respectable distance between them when he came in. She was standing by the table. A chair was pulled out facing the bed, and she gestured for him to take a seat.

He obliged. But there was hesitance in his movements. Like he was holding his own body back from doing something that he might regret later. His eyes fell on the empty plate and he smiled, seemingly relieved, “You ate?”

Emma stayed quiet, didn’t realize it was a question until his subsequent silence compelled her to look at him and she found him staring at her expectantly.

“Yes.”

He nodded, then smiled to himself. “I don’t know, I thought you wouldn’t eat anything. That you would reject the food as an act of defiance.”

She ignored his words, although he wasn’t entirely wrong. She hadn’t wanted to eat anything, but she needed him to see that she was beginning to accept her situation and this reality.

She took a seat on the bed as she calmed the frantic beating of her heart. “I want to tell you that I have reconsidered.”

It was a vague statement. She was well aware of that. But she was having a difficult time forming words with Steve watching her the entire time.

“Reconsidered what?”

“Reconsidered my feelings regarding you.”

That seemed to catch his interest. He leaned forward, one elbow resting on each knee. He regarded her with curious eyes.

“And pray tell, what exactly does that mean?”

“It means that I might be willing to give you a chance.”

Steve smiled a half, wicked-looking smile. It made her dig her fingers into the mattress but she stayed put. “Are you trying to tell me that you will allow me to-”

“No,” she cut him off abruptly. That leer couldn’t have meant anything good, she didn’t want to bite off more than she could chew.

“I have some conditions,” Emma told him, this time in a calmer voice. He raised an eyebrow at her words but humored her.

“You still can’t touch me. At least not yet. And we need to date like a normal couple first. Really get to know each other.”

“There are many things a normal couple does,” he quipped, returning to take his seat on the chair. Emma shook her head at him, but then looked away when she felt her cheeks warm up. “I need to know who you are first. I don’t trust you yet, but I could. That depends on you. I am serious about this Steve. Are you willing to do this for me?”

This was the first time, Steve realized, that she was addressing him with his first name. It caught his attention. A chance was exactly what he had wanted in the first place. A chance to be with her again. But it confused him still. She had been spiteful of him the last time he had seen her. What had changed since then?

“Why are you doing this?” he asked her, a stern look on his face. She sighed in response. Her hand shook, he remembered this. Emma had this small nervous tic. Her hands always trembled when she was worried, or afraid. It had happened the first time he had seen her naked, she had been so nervous. And he had taken her hands in his, placed a kiss on her fingers. His actions had brought about a small, shy smile on her face. He had never seen anything so beautiful. Not until he saw her coming apart beneath him that night. That memory was forever burned in his brain.

“I loved him.”

His eyes narrowed and he saw the way she was avoiding his gaze. But he could still see that she was trying to stop the tears that were threatening to fall from her eyes. He clenched his hands on his sides to keep himself from reaching out and holding her.

“I loved Steve,” she repeated, “but I don’t think he shared the sentiment. I just, I can’t deny that you are him, even if you are Captain Hydra. Maybe, I am meant to be here. I just don’t know. I am not sure, but I want to try. But only if you respect my conditions.”

“Alright,” he nodded, “I will respect your conditions. I will do this because I want you to know that I would do anything for you. But first, I am going to get you shifted to our home.”

She watched him as he stood up from his chair, determined in his movements. “But Steve, we can’t live under the same roof.”

He turned to her and she corrected herself.

“I mean, I would just be more comfortable if we lived separately for now. We can live there together after some time has passed.”

He smiled at her, “If that’s what you want. Still, I could get you into a better place. Would that be okay?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

He gave her a small nod and then walked away. The door closed again and she fell on her bed, breathing hard. The plan had begun, but she didn’t know how far she could take it before it broke her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I am updating after a long time. But I needed to collect my thoughts, to make sure that I was giving you awesome readers a chapter that would really be worth your time. Feedback is appreciated. Or just come and say hello because, as I have said before, it's always fun to interact with you guys.


End file.
